Welcome

PediaTrust

We are pleased to announce that on January 1, 2013 Highland Park Pediatric Associates joined other prominent Chicagoland pediatric medical practices and came together to form PediaTrust. Our goal is to combine our extensive expertise and resources, while maintaining our individual offices and practice styles.

We have joined together so that we can continue to provide care focused on the individual patient. We believe it is important to maintain a small personalized style of practice in order to make the best medical decisions for our patients as we have done for the past 60 years.

We are also pleased to announce some exciting new changes:

A late night and after-hours weekend clinic, staffed by PediaTrust doctors, opened on 7/1 - now your sick child can be evaluated and treated by a trusted doctor at times when our office is closed.

We are going green! We now have paperless charts so that our patients and families are able to connect with our office online.

Our business office has transitioned to a centralized PediaTrust billing office in order to maximize efficiency. All patient bills generated from Highland Park Pediatric Associates after January 1st, 2013 are now under the new heading of PediaTrust.

We have completely redecorated our space - complete with new floors, carpeting, furniture and paint.

We pride ourselves on our independence and our dedication to the individual doctor-patient relationship. We work for YOU, the patients and families. We are honored that you have entrusted us with the care and health of your children, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you as we provide the highest quality personalized pediatric medical care.
If you have any questions about PediaTrust, please do not hesitate to ask.

Enterovirus D68 Infection

School has started and once again illnesses have increased in the community. The first major infectious agent of this academic year is Enterovirus D68. It is important to note that Enteroviral infections happen all the time especially in the late summer and fall of every year. EV-D68 is not a new germ, in fact, it was last seen in 2009-2010.

EV-D68 has been reported to cause respiratory disease. This can range from mild to severe respiratory illness. Symptoms are those of a common cold: fever, cough, and runny nose. Incubation is 3-6 days and the usual illness can last from 4 - 7 days. However, EV-D68 can progress to wheezing, shortness of breath, or even respiratory distress. Luckily, most healthy children can easily fight off this infection. The real medical concern is with a patient who may have underlying medical conditions such as immunosuppression or asthma.

Treatment: There is no specific treatment for EV-D68 or for any common cold. Supportive care with rest, fluids and fever medication is usually all that is needed. Adherence to a patient's asthma treatment plan is essential. Only patients with complicated medical problems usually become hospitalized.

Prevention: No vaccination exists. Avoidance of infected patients (don't send your children to school if they are sick !) is very important to prevent spread of disease. Additional protection from respiratory secretions such as saliva, nasal mucus, or sputum can be achieved by hand washing, avoid sharing eating or drinking utensils, and disinfection of surfaces. Remember, after recovery an infected patient can continue to shed the virus in respiratory droplets or stool for up to three weeks. Therefore, it is important to continue to exercise good hand washing and stool hygiene to prevent further spread of the illness.

It is important to note:

For most children this illness is nothing more than a common cold.

No definitive treatment is available

Watch for symptoms and signs of increasing respiratory problems

For asthmatic patients - please take your medicines at the onset of any symptoms and continue your meds through the duration of the illness.

There is no specific easily available test to check for this virus. Only patients who are extremely ill in an ICU hospital setting need to be identified.

If you have any questions or concerns please schedule an appointment with your child's doctor.

2014 Flu Clinics

To All of Our Highland Park Pediatric Patients and Their Families;
Keep yourself and your family safe from the Flu this season by scheduling an appointment to get your Flu Vaccine during one of our convenient Saturday Flu Clinics. We will be scheduling these on Saturdays between 9:00am and 12:00pm on the following dates:

October 11

October 18

October 25

November 1

The Flu Shot is a safe and effective way to keep you and your child healthy.

Please call 847-432-8422 to schedule your appointment today.

Patient Email Announcement

Email Subject: After-hours Care and Lactation Program Rolling Out

Hello, PediaTrust Families! As a valued patient of a pediatric practice in the PediaTrust network, we have exciting news about new services available to you.

As you know, our practice joined forces with six other area pediatric practices late last year. We did so, because while many pediatricians in the area were integrating with large healthcare systems, we felt the need to pursue a different path. We did not want to compromise the patient care excellence on which we pride ourselves. We saw strength in numbers and decided to integrate and form PediaTrust. Through this alliance, we are now able to expand our care for your child with services that families have told us for years that they need. The first services we are rolling out are PediaTrust's After-hours Care Services and Lactation Services.

After-hours Care You Can Trust

Starting Monday, July 1, our network will make available PediaTrust After-hours Care Services as a better alternative to storefront, acute care settings. Care will be delivered during the following hours in PediaTrust's Lake Shore Pediatrics office located at 1800 Hollister Drive, Suite 220 in Libertyville:

Monday through Friday from 6 to 10 p.m.

Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m.

Sundays and Holidays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Children can walk in to be seen by a PediaTrust pediatrician who will provide a more thorough assessment tapping into your child's complete personal health record documenting their care history and documenting the treatment from the after-hours visit for future reference. We will be providing you further information on this service in the coming weeks.

Breastfeeding Made Simple

If you or a family friend are nursing or interested in exploring whether it is right for you and your baby, a number of our pediatric offices offer the guidance and support of some of the area's most experienced, lactation consultants certified through the International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLC). Now through PediaTrust Lactation Support and Services, an individual consultation can be booked before or after your baby arrives. It starts with an individual assessment and the development of a plan to ensure you are successful in meeting your breast-feeding goals. PediaTrust also will host pre-natal breast feeding classes scheduled separately.

Once your baby has arrived, PediaTrust takes extra steps to achieve a consistency of care for your child, providing updates on your infant's progress to your PediaTrust Pediatrician so that any pertinent details influencing your baby's health are taken into full account.

Hospital-grade pump rentals and other supplies also are made available.

The physicians of PediaTrust value the trust you have placed in us in the past and want to continue to build that trust into the future. The introduction of useful, convenient services is a gesture toward that effort and ultimately will help us both meet our shared goal - to provide the most excellent care available for the continued health of your child!

Thank you for putting your trust in PediaTrust!

PediaTrust opens after-hours clinic in Libertyville

One of the largest pediatrics groups in the region has opened an after-hours clinic in Libertyville.

PediaTrust, LLC, sees children on nights, weekends and holidays in what is billed as the first pediatrics clinic of its kind in the state.

It also marks one of the first new services since the independent network of seven practices in the northwest suburbs merged in 2012. Earlier this year, PediaTrust added a lactation consultant.

The group says the walk-in clinic fills a vital need for families turned off by retail clinics staffed by nurse practitioners and expensive bills and long waits in emergency rooms.

"If you want to get good care, you don't really have very many options in the off hours," says Dr. Arie Friedman, the medical director of the clinic on Hollister Drive.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has raised concerns about the explosion of retail clinics popping up in chains like Wal-Mart and Target. While such clinics offer convenience and low costs for families, the academy argues that they do not properly coordinate care with children's primary physicians.

"It's guesswork," Friedman said. "They're not pediatricians. They may or may not know what they're doing."

The 30 physicians in PediaTrust rotate shifts at the clinic, open four hours a day to accommodate patients after typical business hours.

"I'm meeting my partners' patients, documenting it in the same chart," Friedman said. "I am emailing them through the secure email systems what I did with their patients, and we can talk to each other about follow-up care."

The clinic went live July 1. It provides general pediatric care and charges the same billing practices as a regular doctor's office in the network.

"Our traffic has far exceeded our expectations," Friedman said. "We're much busier than we thought we would be one month into it ... and the families have been overjoyed that we have been available to them."

Nationally, the traditional health-care industry has lagged behind chains in the competition for patients seeking walk-in services, says James Unland, president of Health Capital Group, a Chicago-based consulting firm. Unland said the "average consumer, especially for minor illnesses, would not hesitate to see a nurse practitioner."

"The hospitals and M.D.-owned clinics are going to have to pay more attention to what they're charging because the retail clinics are very competitive in my view," Unland said. "They're incredibly efficient."

The PediaTrust practices came together in an effort to preserve their independence - resisting a clear trend in medicine of consolidating with hospitals.

"Our intent is to continue to grow and provide a haven for other pediatric practices that don't want to be bought out," Friedman said.

By pooling together their resources, the practices have been able to invest in technologies and open up the clinic.

"Certainly, independent practices don't have the capability of doing this sort of thing," Friedman said. "We can do this by virtue of how big we are."

"It's far more successful far quicker than we guessed, so we would love to do more of these clinics," he said. "We will get this one stabilized and get a model built, and we may very well open up more of these, not just in Lake County."

For over 50 years our practice has provided comprehensive care for your newborns, children, teenagers and college-age students. We are all certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and provide conventional medical care for both acute and chronic health problems as well as providing preventative care for your children.

As a traditional medical practice based on the idea of continuous long term health care, we encourage you to identify with one of our physicians and create a one-to-one relationship with your primary care doctor. We are in our Highland Park office seven days a week to be available for your health care needs.

We are proud to be affiliated with Children's Memorial Hospital and can provide additional hospital coverage at NorthShore University HealthSystem in Highland Park, Evanston and Glenview. We are also on staff at Lake Forest Hospital. Additionally, as established members of the medical community, we can direct you to the finest pediatric specialists in the entire Chicago metropolitan area. We welcome patients from Lake and Cook County, and the surrounding towns of Highland Park, Vernon Hills, Buffalo Grove, Libertyville, Mundelein, Lincolnshire, Deerfield, Lake Forest, Gurnee, Grayslake, Glencoe, Northbrook, Glenview, Highwood, Winnetka, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Bannockburn, and Lake Bluff as well as Highland Park.

*Please read this before emailing our office:
Because we want to offer you the highest quality of care, please do not email us medical or health-related questions. If you have any questions or need to schedule an appointment, please call us at (847) 432-8422. Email will be checked only during regular office hours.